Hypo Magic
by World Of Lily Luna
Summary: Written for Philosopher's Stone Challenge, category The Vanishing Glass. Hermione mother lets seven year old Hermione have her first regular lollipop one day.


_A/N: Written for Philosopher's Stone competition._

_Assignment: The Vanishing Glass__: Write about a character's accidental magic when they were a child._

**Hypo Magic**

This was not what she had expected.

She didn't know _what_ she had expected; but it definitely wasn't this.

It was **one **lollipop! One! One sugar-filled, artificially flavoured, artificially coloured lollipop, sure. But still, it was just _one lollipop_!

Surely this wasn't normal. Parents wouldn't buy this stuff, if this was the norm, right? If every child, no matter how well-behaved, conscientious and well-spoken, turned into this... this... Tasmanian Devil!

Dr Emma Granger could only watch as her seven year old daughter – her sweet, _polite, _seven year old daughter – ran up to an old lady feeding the ducks in the pond.

"You're really not supposed to feed the birds, you know," she said. "You're really supposed to let them find their own food." And she was off to her next victim. Emma hurriedly apologised to the bemused lady, and sped off after Hermione, to try to stave off some disaster.

There was a young man jogging down the path away from them, and Hermione – _usually not so keen on athletics _Hermione – quickly overtook him , and ran a circle around him (almost tripping him up in the process).

"You're really not very fast, are you?" Thankfully the man just laughed and continued on with his exercise. Hermione, meanwhile, had spotted a lone boy playing in the sandbox.

"Let's build a castle!" she shouted, startling the boy, as she jumped and landed on her knees right next to him. She took his shovel and started digging. The boy was quick to join in with a smile.

Gratefully, Emma sank down on the nearest bench, this would keep the little devil occupied for a while.

Watching the children at play, Emma tried to think of a way to get Hermione calm enough to continue on to her great-grandmother. Rupert's grandmother. She didn't know her very well, but rather thought she preferred quiet, hence her move to the elderly community nearby.

There wasn't much of a castle forming, probably because they didn't have buckets. The boy didn't seem to have brought one, and of course she had come unprepared for such good weather; it was raining in Devon when they left. It was a spur of the moment decision to stop at this small park on the way.

Hermione was talking to the black-haired boy about a mile a _second_, and he seemed to be listening avidly. Suddenly he burst out laughing, and Hermione slowly smiled. Emma was surprised. Normally Hermione didn't get on so well with other kids, at least on the first meet.

"Let's go on the swings!" the boy said, jumping up. Hermione jumped up, too.

"Okay, race you!" And off they were. Hermione's sugar-powered legs were pumping furiously, but the small boy just beat her to the swing set. They hung on and started spinning around, twisting the swings until they couldn't go any farther. Just before they were going to let loose, a big blond boy came up to Hermione's friend and grabbed his swing. Emma got up to interfere in what was clearly going to be trouble.

"...playing here first!" yelled Hermione.

The blond boy looked confused, "You're not playing with him, are you?"

"That _is_ what I just said, isn't it? We're using the swings; _You_ can go play somewhere else... We'll be done soon, anyway," she added. Emma stopped to listen, curious how this would play out.

"You don't have to play with him. Nobody wants to play with Harry. You can play with me instead?" The big boy offered.

Hermione was now so angry, even her grammar was suffering. "I don't wanna play with you! I'm playing with Harry!" And she kicked off from the ground so hard, the boy took a step away and let go of the boy (Harry)'s swing.

Hermione was now in full swing and twirl, and Harry laughed and kicked off too. Crisis averted.

The children did a few more normal swings, while Emma watched from a bit closer this time. But they seemed to have bounced back quite fast from that fun-time interruption. Soon they were having a long jump competition.

Emma hated to cut this play time short, but they still had that visit with Nana planned. "Hermione, we really have be going now, Nana is waiting for us!" she called.

Hermione's perked up like a rabbit. "Biscuits!" she yelled. "Bye Harry, see you next time!"

The boy waved a little, with a sad smile. Emma would have to make sure to visit this park more often.

As Emma walked, with Hermione skipping while holding her hand (very awkward), out of the park, Hermione seemed to be calming down. They made it to Nana's with only one more incident: the jogging man from earlier was now stretching against the gate to the park.

Trying to emulate his stance, Hermione asked him, "What are you doing?" and without listening to the answer, continued with, "It looks weird."

Emma pulled her daughter away with an apology to the young man.

At Nana's Hermione was trying to behave, she really was. At first she was alright and just quietly ate the few biscuits Nana had brought for her and drank her milk, listening to the adult conversation. But after the first ten minutes she started to wiggle in her seat, as if trying to find the right position. Then she started swinging her feet. Then she started tilting her chair back.

"What is on your mind, dearie?" Nana asked kindly. And Hermione was off. Pointing at just about everything in the room, she demanded an explanation of everything. Nana was, of course very obliging, and told het about each figurine's history, or little anecdotes about how they came in her possession. Though Hermione wasn't easy to keep up with, she was actually a great storyteller, and kept the little girl, and Emma, engaged until it was time to go home.

Having eaten at Nana's, Hermione crashed in the car ride home, was put straight to bed when they got there. As Rupert and Emma tucked her in, she requested one last bedtime story.

"Sure, dearie, which book would you like us to read from?" Rupert asked the little angel.

Hermione pointed to her bookcase. "That one." And out came floating: Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Startled, Rupert plucked the book out of the air.

Emma bewilderedly shook her head, "we'll talk about this tomorrow, I'm beat," she said.

Rupert shrugged and began to read:

'Call me Ishmael...'

_Last scene inspired by ending of the 'Matilda' film, which I love._


End file.
